Month: March 2009

Zionism Is The Problem

Opposing Zionism, writes Ben Ehrenreich, is neither anti-Semitic nor particularly radical. It requires only that we take our own values seriously and no longer, as the book of Amos has it, “turn justice into wormwood and hurl righteousness to the ground.”

It’s hard to imagine now, but in 1944, six years after Kristallnacht, Lessing J. Rosenwald, president of the American Council for Judaism, felt comfortable equating the Zionist ideal of Jewish statehood with “the concept of a racial state — the Hitlerian concept.” For most of the last century, a principled opposition to Zionism was a mainstream stance within American Judaism.

Even after the foundation of Israel, anti-Zionism was not a particularly heretical position. Assimilated Reform Jews like Rosenwald believed that Judaism should remain a matter of religious rather than political allegiance; the ultra-Orthodox saw Jewish statehood as an impious attempt to “push the hand of God”; and Marxist Jews — my grandparents among them — tended to see Zionism, and all nationalisms, as a distraction from the more essential struggle between classes.
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Everyone agrees: War in Gaza was a failure

Gideon Levy examines the Israeli media in the wake of the Gaza massacre and warns us to “get ready for the next treat. They’ve already begun to clamor for a new war in Gaza or Lebanon, whichever comes first.”

Suddenly we’re all in consensus: The recent war in Gaza was a failure. The bon ton now is to list its flaws. Flip-floppers say its “achievements” were squandered; leftists say the war “should never have started” and rightists will say the war “should have lasted longer.” But on this they all agree: It was a blunder.

Because we consider the war to have been almost cost-free, with just 13 Israeli dead, it will be the first in 36 years without a Commission of Inquiry formed in its wake.


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De-Osloising the Palestinian Mind

Dr. Haidar Eid writes against the two-prison solution.

Not only have the whites been guilty of being on the offensive, but by some skilful manoeuvres, they have managed to control the responses of the blacks to the provocation. Not only have they kicked the black, but they have also told him how to react to the kick. For a long time the black has been listening with patience to the advice he has been receiving on how best to respond to the kick. With painful slowness he is now beginning to show signs that it is his right and duty to respond to the kick in the way he sees fit.
– Steve Biko

One of the most important outcomes of the Gaza massacre (2009) has been the unprecedented tremendous outpouring of popular support for the Palestinian cause; something the signatories of the Oslo accords (1993) must have not been happy with. The return of the pre-Oslo slogans of liberation, as opposed to independence, have, undoubtedly, created a new dilemma, not only for Oslo political elites, but also for the NGOized, Stalinist Left. Continue reading “De-Osloising the Palestinian Mind”

Open Letter to Mira Awad: Don’t help Israel whitewash its atrocities!

PACBI urges ‘Arab Israeli’ singer to reconsider singing for the apartheid state at Eurovision.

Palestinian artists and intellectuals in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip are disappointed by the news of your intention to represent Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) is writing to urge you not to participate on behalf of Israel in this contest.

To represent Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest will serve to polish the international image of an aggressive occupying state that has long been engaged in ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. It will communicate to the rest of the world that Israel’s war crimes and violations of international law are acceptable to us as Palestinians! May we remind you of some of the actions of the state you will be representing: the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians in 1948; the subjugation of 3.6 million Palestinians to a system of occupation and apartheid in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967; the long history of extra-judicial killing of Palestinian leaders and activists; the imprisonment of tens of thousands of Palestinians since 1948; the building of the apartheid wall; the recent vicious attack on occupied Gaza and the murder of more than 1,440 people (of whom at least 400 were children).

Continue reading “Open Letter to Mira Awad: Don’t help Israel whitewash its atrocities!”

Charles Freeman’s Victory

Justin Raimondo argues that although forced to withdraw, “Chas” Freeman took the Israel lobby down with him.

The nixing of Charles “Chas” Freeman from a post as head of the National Intelligence Council is not, as is commonly averred, a victory for the Israel lobby. It is, instead, a Pyrrhic victory – that is, a victory so costly that it really amounts to a defeat for them. Sure, they managed to keep out a trenchant critic of their Israel-centric and grossly distorted view of a proper American foreign policy, and, yes, they managed to smear him and put others on notice that someone with his views is radioactive, as far as a high-level job in the foreign policy establishment is concerned. And yet – and yet ….
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Bombing of Gaza continues

No longer in the mainstream media’s spotlight, Israel continues to bomb the Gaza border area with impunity and the tacit consent of Egyptian leaders, wounding civilians and destroying the life-line for thousands of impoverished Gazans. A report by Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa Al-Omrani:

Almost two months after the war on the Gaza Strip, the border area between the battered coastal enclave and Egypt continues to come under frequent Israeli aerial bombardment. Israeli officials say the strikes target cross-border tunnels used to smuggle weapons to Palestinian resistance factions.

“Israel is still regularly launching air strikes on the border area,” Ibrahim Mansour, political analyst and executive editor-in-chief of independent daily Al-Dustour told IPS. “Such attacks represent a violation of all international rules and agreements, including the Egypt-Israel Camp David peace agreement.”

Throughout the course of Israel’s recent assault on the Gaza Strip (Dec. 27 to Jan. 17), the border zone between Egypt and Gaza was pummelled by hundreds of Israeli air strikes. Sources in the area also say that Egyptian airspace was repeatedly violated by Israeli aircraft during the campaign.

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Gaza and the Westminster ‘Friends of Israel’

Stuart Littlewood writing on the Zionist lackeys in Westminster:

In January, while Israel’s military was pulverising Gaza for 22 days and nights and incinerating its women and children with phosphor bombs, the Liberal Democrat Party in the UK published an article by its Friends of Israel wing, entitled ‘Israel has no option but to defend itself against Hamas and Iran’.

According to this, “Israel is fighting in Gaza to stop the firing of rockets at towns and cities well within Israel’s internationally recognized, pre-1967 borders. These rockets are not home-made fireworks; they are sophisticated weapons, which often kill innocent people. They are fired without precision…”

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Rong Radio

Brilliant stuff, from Benjamin Zephaniah. (thanks Tariq)

Rong Radio — by Benjamin Zephaniah

My ears are battered and burned and
i have just learned that i have been
listening to the wrong radio station Continue reading “Rong Radio”

Aid convoy enters Gaza Strip

Some good news for a change: after setting off from Manchester almost a month ago and travelling more than 8000km, the Viva Palestina aid convoy – led by George Galloway – finally reached Gaza this week.

George Galloway in Gaza

A British convoy carrying medical relief for the impoverished residents of the Gaza Strip has crossed into the territory from Egypt.

Gazans cheered and waved Palestinian flags as the convoy finally entered the territory through the Rafah border crossing on Monday, after being stranded on the  Egyptian side of the border for two days.

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Pakistan’s Nukes

To the extent that it exists Pakistan’s sovereignty is diminishing.  The price of political power has been to trade it away incrementally. First it was under Leghari that Aimal Kansi was captured and handed over the Americans, then it was Musharraf who gave away airbases, and scores of innocents in order to consolidate his power, and now it is Zardari — Mr. 10 percent — who is transferring the ‘security’ of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal into the hands of US personnel. Here is Richard Sale writing on Col. Patrick Lang’s blog.  (The notion that Pakistan’s nuke’s would fall into the hands of ‘Taliban sympathizers’ is bunk, but has been a useful talking point amongst doom-mongers within and without).

With Pakistan’s political instability spreading, nervous concern has mounted over the fate of Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal should Taliban sympathizers gain power within the Pakistan military, but under the terms of secret agreements, U.S. personnel have been stationed in Pakistan whose sole function is to guarantee and secure the safety of Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal and keep it out of the hands of terrorists, according to several serving and former U.S. officials.

In any case, in the opinion of several former and serving U.S. officials, Pakistan’s nukes are currently secure, “They are for now,” said one.

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